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Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

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Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#221

Post by google234123 »

anfilt wrote: post #220
google234123 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to restrict Apple's right to sell a limited computing device. I would argue that you are infringing on their freedom.

You don't normally sell things with limited ownership rights. Selling something generally involves the transfer of all rights in real/tangible property. Here apple is reserving some rights even after sale. Last I checked apple was not leasing devices or something similar.

You are free to try and jail break your device if you want. Also, your statement is false: buying most things don't involves the transfer of all rights. You aren't free to make copies and resell. The app store is a service that comes with the phone.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#222

Post by syrrim »

nemothekid wrote: post #190
syrrim wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of the concept of inheritance?

What cryptography are you using that is aware of the concept of inheritance?

Obviously protocols aren't aware of anything. Humans designed the protocols, however, and are very much aware of such things.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#223

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

mullingitover wrote: post #165
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my company had the exact same problem. This is no automated process. We had to enable EITHER in-app free trials OR in-app purchases (or both). And you cant use stripe, paypal, amazon payments, google pay, or alipay in-app.... it MUST be apple pay.

Did they cite the particular part of the developer agreement that was violated in your case?

Yes, but I don't have it handy to quote to you. By the way, the forced use of Apple Pay is the really big anticompetitive behavior -- bigger than the forced use of the Apple App Store.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#224

Post by Wowfunhappy »

maccard wrote: post #131
Barrin92 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always amazed that in the land of the brave and free butchering general purpose computing machines is supposed to be justified by the fact grandma doesn't install the wrong apps. Funny is this argument always exclusively pops up when it comes to Apple smartphones. Are we supposed to lock every desktop down too because mom and pop installed a wrong toolbar? It's like the reverse 'but think of the children', and pe…

I bought my dad a chromebook 2 years ago, because it's the most locked down laptop form factor I could find. My tech support calls have dropped from monthly (yes, monthly) to once. Before it was "I can't find my email" (whatever windows' default url handler for mail:foo@bar wasn't logged into his account) or "office isn't working" (that's a zip file, not a document), or " every time I try to run X it does Y" (the fin…

Chromebooks are great! But funny thing about them, you can also unlock the bootloader if you want, and install whatever you like.

It's not an either or. I agree that most devices should probably be locked down by default, but there should still be an off switch. The so-called dancing bunnies problem everyone brings up doesn't appear to have caused a problem.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#225

Post by ogre_codes »

bogwog wrote: post #212
ogre_codes wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguing these fine points is a waste of time because I feel like people defending this are missing the complete insanity of this situation All I’m suggesting is we just discuss what Apple actually does rather than exaggerating it to poorly make a point. > That's a deflection tactic, and doesn't justify anything. 15% is still too much as long as there are no alternatives. I wouldn’t have even mentioned this if you h…

> There is an absolutely massive difference between “All their revenue” and “All revenue from in app purchases”. The OP is about Librem Tunnel, an app which is one part of a subscription service called "Librem One". By forcing this company to add in-app purchases, Apple is taking 30% of all the revenue of the entire Librem One subscription, since Librem doesn't sell VPN access by itself. I don't see how I'm blowing t…

> I don't see how I'm blowing that out of proportion?

Above, you gave (to me at least) the impression that you were referring to all of Librem’s revenue. Not just the revenue which is filtered through the App Store, every penny they earn.

I don’t care for a lot of the way the App Store works, including the point you make here. But your original post was not very clear if this is what you meant to say.

There should be room in the App Stores for businesses which sell services where the App is only part of the offering.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#226

Post by geofft »

bogwog wrote: post #159
ogre_codes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet Apple is forcing them to give up 30% of their revenue, because they can. This is a bit disingenuous. Apple isn’t forcing them to give up 30% of their revenue, they are requiring they give users the option to sign up through the App Store. If most of their customers come from outside the App Store, this won’t make much difference to them. If they make less the $1m through the App Store, it will only be 15%. The…

Arguing these fine points is a waste of time because I feel like people defending this are missing the complete insanity of this situation. Try a different perspective: Let's say Apple wants to sell their devices at "Billy's Electronics", which is a tiny kiosk at a mall with minimal foot traffic. Billy tells Apple that he'll only sell Apple devices at his kiosk if Apple agrees to give him 30% of all revenues Apple ma…

... but this is how actual retail works.

Real-world Billy doesn't hold the "license to sell electronics," but the various mall management companies - of which there aren't very many - do in fact exclusively control the real estate in the shopping malls. They don't charge Apple a percentage of sales, but they charge them some amount of money for simply having the store, regardless of sales, which can be even more: if you look at the latest MacBook in person at the store, go home, and decide you want to buy it from apple.com, the landlord still gets money from Apple.

The various mall management companies make, quite literally, billions of dollars a year. The landlords who own non-mall property for the Apple Store downtown also make piles of money. And they don't need a license, nor do they need to convince anyone that they're protecting anyone. They just own the land.

And Apple also sells products through various other retailers, like cell phone companies, Best Buy, etc., each of which work out deals of various sorts. You generally can't buy an unlocked, no-contract iPhone from a cell phone company. You get an iPhone with a contract that commits you to spending way more money than the cost of the phone.

Arguably, Apple's role is a lot fairer; there's no scarce resource like properly-zoned land in a populated city on which the App Store was built. Anything that happens on the App Store is entirely Apple's doing; anything that happens in a mall or in an existing retail store is partly the owner's doing and partly their good fortune to have put themselves there before someone else did. If someone wants to compete with iOS and the App Store, they are free to build their own version from scratch - nothing Apple did is stopping them. If someone wants to compete with a shopping mall, you can't just plop down a new shopping mall - the land is in use. If we think Apple doesn't deserve to take a cut for use of their platform that they built, the landlords certainly don't deserve rent for use of land that they bought.

(Which is, to be fair, my own personal opinion, but the market doesn't agree with me, and there's very little point in me pouting at the market.)

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#227

Post by anfilt »

google234123 wrote: post #221
anfilt wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't normally sell things with limited ownership rights. Selling something generally involves the transfer of all rights in real/tangible property. Here apple is reserving some rights even after sale. Last I checked apple was not leasing devices or something similar.

You are free to try and jail break your device if you want. Also, your statement is false: buying most things don't involves the transfer of all rights. You aren't free to make copies and resell. The app store is a service that comes with the phone.

The fact you mention one must Jail Break to even have hope of maybe enjoying all their property rights, implies some kinda of Economic tort. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_torts)

And no when you buy something it generally involves the transfer of all rights in real/tangible property. Please notice I said generally. Copyright is one of the few exceptions (also it's not real property, but intellectual). However, you are allowed to make copies of Books and CDs, although how one may distribute/reproduce said copies is limited under copyright. Also when you buy a copyrighted work you can for instance open the cover and see that it states it's copyrighted.

However, again a book is the tangible property not the copyrighted idea/work. Copyright does not give them the right to stop you from writing/drawing or using a highlighter or doing anything else to the book. The copyright does not extend to the pages, glue, ect... of the physical book.

Treat Apple's iPhone as a book. The words on the page the OS. The paper and binding ect.. is the hardware. However, Apple's book if you try crossing out words or writing new words on blank pages (aka empty memory) the book tries to stop you from doing that unless Apple approves those words. However, Apple does not advertise this as a book that they can choose what you can and can't do with it. They just call it a book. Apple is doing two things here they are interfering with your use of the book, and not telling people that they interfere with your use of the book when advertising it. They get away with this because most people only read books they buy.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#228

Post by Daho0n »

random5634 wrote: post #68
spideymans wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The prompting for purchase and trials is VERY explicit. So for example, NY Times has a banner (not on ios) saying signup for $1/week. Great, you do it. Then you find out that in a month it switches to something like $15/month- I mean, the scams and tricks are endless off app store. I really wish government or credit card companies would impose rules on merchants that prohibit this kind of behaviour. It's very easy t…

Apple has focused pretty heavily on the user experience, developers be damned. I know this is not popular on HN (ie, anti-trust claims to allow devs to abuse users the way they can elsewhere). They haven't been stupid / annoying about it. You contrast their controls with those outside ios. The russian site I visit with the cookie notice, they can still track me and what am I going to do about it? So the cookie notice…

It's exactly as ineffective in iOS. You are just comparing apples to rocketships (iPhone app Vs russian site in browser). Besides, top story on HN says Tiktok will track iOS users, circumventing apple's attempt to block it. So you decline and feel nice and fluffy but it didn't do much. It's worse on Android but there people with knowledge can at least fix it. In iOS you can't even install a proper adblocker. If you want the privacy you to be as effective as you say Apple will need to control every site in your browser like they do with apps.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#229

Post by Daho0n »

messe wrote: post #189
naringas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the user has control over their Mac. for now, because observing the current trends, they'll likely won't for much longer... all for the sake of safety and convenience.

People have been saying the same thing since the Mac App store came out. And yet, here we are in exactly the same position.

Clearly we are not. The amount of changes Apple have made are plenty. VPNs are harder to use, side loading is harder, adblockers are ineffective, etc.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#230

Post by jasonjayr »

google234123 wrote: post #214
jasonjayr wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect any device with general purpose computing capabilities to allow me to use those capabilities anyway I want. Especially I'm spending $1000 USD on the thing.

If you want completely general purpose computing capabilities then don't buy an Iphone. I don't expect my fridge to allow me to execute arbitrary code on it's ARM cpu.

Right, I get that.

But that argument is tired. These 'smart phones' have been advertised as PC Replacements. "Run your software, your games, your choice." To many people it is the only computer they will personally own.

They are computers with cellular modems and other useful sensors built in. That's it. There are magnitudes of people with the know how to operate these things and take full responsibility for their operation and maintenance. There are scores of people who could more easily creatively use these devices in ways we can't even imagine now.

Everyday these vendors prevent free and clear operation of this type of hardware, they hamper innovation, in favor of short term profits.

And also; to reply specifically regarding the fridge, to be honest, I actually do want to run my own code there: CPU based controller boards in appliances tend to be obnoxiously prices for replacement. The cost of the parts for a controller board + related software can't possibly be more than a RPi computer and a bunch of relays. The fridge's computer's code is probably running a software based PID controller, that could be sourced anywhere else, and perhaps even software optimized to take advantage of better energy usage algorithms.

So again, locked down hardware, short term profits. "$300 part bad on a $800 fridge, just buy a new one and throw the old one away"

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